Verizon Wireless is fighting to have its spectrum deal with cable providers Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House (joined in the SpectrumCo venture) approved, and it now says phone users will benefit from the deal hugely. If the deal passes, mobile subscribers could have cable TV on their smartphones as soon as these Holidays, according to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam.

An integrated mobile TV deal could happen if cable operators team up with Big Red, McAdam said for the Wall Street Journal. Even better, mobile subscribers could finally have an a la carte solution, picking only the channels they want to watch. Obviously, this should translate into lower costs if you pick only a couple of channels you’re interested in, instead of the whole cable TV lineup.

"Most content providers realize that the number of channels and the layout that you have within your home may not be appropriate for the mobile environment, and those discussions are just beginning now," McAdam said. Some content providers "have come to us and have said, 'We are willing to do an à la carte approach here.'"

Streamed video could also be separate from your data caps, so you don’t have to pay for both data and mobile cable service.

This would be a good argument if it didn’t sound so hypothetical at the moment. And competing carriers pressure Big Red with real doubts over competitiveness - if the SpectrumCo deal passes and Verizon does get 122 AWS licenses for its LTE network, this could give it the monopoly over the scarce resource of spectrum. The Department of Justice is currently investigating the deal for the same anti-competitive reasons.

Previously, Netflix has also said that it could become a part of such a service, so we imagine that the time for cable TV becoming wireless on your smartphone isn’t that far away.

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I am hoping that it gets arroved. if it does get approved then verizon will, hopefully, lower it's prices on mobile data. It will also add to the features and abilities one can do with their mobile device. AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile will all complain, of course, but the fact of the matter is that Verizon is currently the biggest and best company. In terms of coverage and the ration between price per coverage. If you want to get the best sometimes you will have to fork out more. Granted it would be wonderful to pay less for great coverage. But that is not the case as the world we live in everything is so competitive. So hopefully the added spectrum will lower the price of data for now, at least for a few years, and make the great 4G even better.
I know you trolls will all gang up on this trying to find fault with my reply. Looking for things that will descredit my comment. Just know that I am currently deployed, working 14-16 hrs a day, so my spelling and the wording of things will not be the best.

Yeah.........just want I wanted, the ability to watch TV on a 4.5" screen. Back in the day, people used to complain due to the share size of their TV screens, 19". Now seems folks are regressing, and are willing to pay more, for a smaller screen viewing.

I doubt this will happen since the DOJ stopped AT&T from purchashing T-Mobile They will have to deny Verizon as well or else face the risk of so many valid legal challenges. This would with no doubt give Verizon a Monopoly.

IF this gets approved, there is no way any of the other feature charges will go down. This is just another way for Verizon to make money. It will probably cost an outrageous amount of money just to watch one channel, and there has to be some kind of limit there, or else where are they going to make their money? Just another confusing thing to add to the bill as well, TV overages anyone?

Just another faster way to get you to hit your Data allowance so they can get paid on overages.
Its a shame all the carriers are pushing all this new media and put an allowance on the data so no one can utilize it unless you're grandfathered in on an unlimited plan.

I'm one of the few that actually dropped cable a while back. It was kind of pointless since I never used it. The only way I'll be interested in this idea is if we only pay for the channels we want but never the channels we don't use.

The article said that the data streamed for cable content could be separate from data caps, so it doesn't count against your monthly data plan. I think battery life would limit the usefulness of this service more than any data restraints.

Hey Verizon Wireless why don't you work on improving your customer service to the levels it used to be at and also finish getting 4G here in South Central PA before you working on tv on the phone. I have had my 4G phone now for more than 6 months and there is no sign of 4G yet!

Would be weird if this gets approved as AT&T was denied their deal. Would not make any sense, but then again, we are talking about the government, which is inadequate in its handling of the spectrum issue as well as other issues such as how the U.S. is losing the war on hackers and piracy. Oh well, back to piratebay.org for some more fun!!

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